Unemployment: Over-50s

Lord Taylor of Goss Moor Excerpts

Tuesday 9th March 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Stedman-Scott (Con)]

In respect of conditionality and targeted support, the work that we are doing through the work coaches is tailored and individual. We are using the conditionality rules as compassionately and sensibly as we can.

[Lord Taylor of Goss Moor (LD) [V]]

My Lords, as has been indicated, over-50s are twice as likely as the rest of the population to stay unemployed, once unemployed, for more than two years. The truth is, of course, that many never get back into work, partly because there is a sense that taking on an older employee is less valuable, despite their skills and experience. Given that during the pandemic we have seen a much greater increase proportionately in unemployment among the over-50s, there is clearly a risk that many of these people will never return to work. I support the suggestion of the equivalent to the Kickstart programme for over-50s, because we know that the longer you are unemployed at over 50, the more likely it is that you will never return to work.

[Baroness Stedman-Scott (Con)]

As I said, I thought that the idea of the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher, was excellent. I can only concur with the noble Lord that we should explore that.

Extreme Poverty

Lord Taylor of Goss Moor Excerpts

Tuesday 15th December 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Stedman-Scott (Con)]

I certainly acknowledge the issues that people are facing; I do not shy away from that at all. But, at the risk of repeating myself, the Government are right now putting over £100 million extra into working-age welfare, we have the Covid winter support fund, we have the plan for jobs and the pandemic policies are under continual review. There are free school meals and money for food charities. I am not sure I agree with the noble Baroness’s implication that we are not doing enough.

[Lord Taylor of Goss Moor (LD) [V]]

My Lords, we clearly face a completely unprecedented shock to the system, in which families who have been hard working and supporting themselves are being plunged into poverty and destitution by the economic shocks associated with coronavirus. One group that is often forgotten is those in rural poverty, whose difficulties are often made worse by their difficulty in accessing services that have been centralised. Will the Government put a priority on ensuring that at least some services are directed to the more remote, rural communities, where people in destitution often find themselves unable to get the help that people in more urban areas take for granted?

[Baroness Stedman-Scott (Con)]

The noble Lord raises a very pertinent issue. I am well aware of the issues that rural communities face. What I would like to do, if he is happy with this, is go back to my colleagues in the jobcentre network in order to understand exactly what they are doing to target help at the rural communities, and come back to him in due course.

Universal Credit

Lord Taylor of Goss Moor Excerpts

Tuesday 1st December 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Taylor of Goss Moor (LD) [V]]

I welcome the fact that the Minister has stressed that this is under current review, because if these payments are not maintained at a time when we can see what is happening in many low-paid jobs—even today in retail in particular —the evidence is that half a million more people will go into deep poverty and more than that will be brought into poverty. There is some urgency though, because people need to know where they stand as they see debts building up and struggle to take themselves through Christmas, so I hope that Ministers will take an early decision on this and not wait till the last minute.

[Baroness Stedman-Scott (Con)]

I note the point about the timing of any decision, but that is with my friend in the other place, the Chancellor of the Exchequer. The Government are redoubling and trebling our efforts for those people who have found themselves in difficulty, including the people from Debenhams and Arcadia who are concerned for their futures, to get people back to work. We are completely focused on it. We have doubled the number of work coaches; we have Kickstart; we have the youth offer; we have sector-based work academies; and the Jobcentre Plus staff, the work coaches and the employment teams are engaging with employers to make sure that we have every vacancy we can get and we get people back to work as quickly as we can.

Supporting Disadvantaged Families

Lord Taylor of Goss Moor Excerpts

Thursday 12th November 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Stedman-Scott (Con)]

The noble Baroness is correct in that we want to give people peace of mind, as reflected in the announcement that we have made. The right reverend Prelate made his statement, and all I can say is that our Secretary of State, the department and the Government are working tirelessly around the clock to make sure that there is a package in place that does what it can to support people in these difficult times.

[Lord Taylor of Goss Moor (LD) [V]]

My Lords, I would like to associate myself with the comments of others in congratulating Marcus Rashford on persuading the Government to take these rightful actions. As a single father, I am not disadvantaged financially, but I have direct experience with three young boys—two of whom, at different times in the last month, have had to self-isolate at home because of potential contact with coronavirus cases at school—of just how difficult it can be for families in these circumstances.

First, can the Minister assure us that no one will now have to choose between looking after their children when they need looking after and earning an income—that the financial support will always be there for everyone who needs it? Secondly, can the Minister comment on the rollout of computers to schools to make sure that every child at home gets the opportunity for education? It is absolutely clear, from all the evidence presented to the Government, that the coronavirus period has been a catastrophe for many children, particularly those who were already disadvantaged.

Kickstart Scheme

Lord Taylor of Goss Moor Excerpts

Monday 7th September 2020 Lords Chamber

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Work and Pensions (Baroness Stedman-Scott) (Con)]

I thank the noble Baroness for her question. She has started us on a very important issue to do with the Kickstart Scheme. The jobs secured through the Kickstart Scheme will go through a very rigorous process. One of the major benefits of the new Kickstart Scheme is the involvement of the private sector. We will ensure that the jobs provided under Kickstart will be good quality. We believe the best chance for a sustained job will come from taking part in the scheme. The employers will have a chance to see if they can place participants permanently in their establishments.

[Lord Taylor of Goss Moor (LD) [V]]

While it is incredibly important to get young people into work, small businesses are struggling to make sense of how they can access this scheme—yet the poster child is Tesco, which is taking on people, growing and benefiting from coronavirus and will now get free members of staff. How can the Minister ensure that those people taken on at government cost would not have been taken on in any case by Tesco and that they will get some kind of qualification or hope of a job at the end of this?

[Baroness Stedman-Scott (Con)]

I am pleased to say that the latest briefing I have had today is that a range of companies wish to take part in Kickstart—large companies, as the noble Lord suggested, and small companies, as well as charities. There will be a rigorous process to follow to ensure that those jobs are additional and not previously advertised. I am sure the process we go through will result in good-quality opportunities for our young people.

Under-occupancy Charge

Lord Taylor of Goss Moor Excerpts

Thursday 28th January 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Freud]

I do not have the figures to which the noble Baroness referred, so I will have to check the figures we have and write to her on that.

Effectively, with this appeal we are joining these two cases to a number of others for the Supreme Court to look at the whole thing in one context. It is, essentially, about whether the discretionary housing payment system is appropriate for handling these particular hard cases, which the High Court has, in practice, accepted as the right way to ameliorate those cases, up to now.

[Lord Taylor of Goss Moor (LD)]

My Lords, my former colleague, Andrew George, brought forward proposals in the previous Parliament to exempt those who had particular needs for an extra room from the bedroom tax—such as those with disabilities needing a carer—and, indeed, to exempt those who had not been offered suitable alternative accommodation. I have heard what the Minister has said about this case. I do not believe that, outside the Government, anyone believes that the kind of cases that went to appeal are a matter for discretion.

The Minister may say that a wise local authority will exercise its discretion appropriately, but the general public will ask: how can it possibly be a matter for discretion when there is any chance that they might not get that support when they so evidently need the space within their accommodation? Nor do I believe that the public understand why people are penalised when a local authority is unable to offer them suitable alternative accommodation. I say simply to the Minister that I do not believe the Government are doing themselves any service at all in pressing this to the Supreme Court. I have no particular wish to encourage support for the Government but I assume that the Minister would wish to encourage such support, so I really beg him to think again. It is in the interests of all involved. Most of all, I believe that, on this, the Government are not with the people.

[Lord Freud]

The issue here is that there quite a lot of particular circumstances where one would feel that people should not have the spare room subsidy removed. It is extraordinarily hard to define all those cases. That is why the Government took the decision in 2010-11, when this was introduced, to have this mechanism of a discretionary fund so that the hard cases can be looked after. By and large, that system has been pretty effective in making sure that in those hard cases the people are looked after.

Housing Benefit (Transitional Provisions) (Amendment) Regulations 2014

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Thursday 3rd April 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Touhig (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank my noble friend Lady Sherlock for securing this debate. Of all the Government’s reforms to welfare, it is hard to find another more cruel, more callous and more mean-spirited than the bedroom tax. The policy was dreamt up by people who have no need for housing benefit themselves and probably do not even know anybody who depends on it. While it may make sense in theory, in practice it is having a devastating effect on the lives of vulnerable people. Additionally, the very ideas and theory behind the policy are, I believe, wicked and wrong. Ministers have stressed that the policy is designed to fix a broken system of housing benefit and encourage behavioural change among recipients of housing benefit. This is sheer nonsense. The system is broken, though not because of the behaviour of those who use it; the cause is the housing stock itself. In England, there are 180,000 tenants underoccupying two-bedroom homes but only 85,000 smaller homes available.

The Catholic charity Caritas Diocese of Salford has been working with Michelle. She has three children and lives in a three-bedroom home. Originally she cared for her brother, who has now moved into supported accommodation. Her 13 year-old daughter now uses the so-called spare room. Michelle is trying for a home swap, looking for a two-bedroom home, but nothing is available. The £12 she loses each week means that she now regularly resorts to food banks. This is the reality of the bedroom tax. The only economy left for families to make is on food. When that cannot be done, they have to resort to food banks. In Merseyside, social landlords have referred 553 tenants to food banks.

The cost of the bedroom tax is horrific, but the attitude that it displays towards social housing is also wrong. No longer can people regard where they live as their homes. Housing benefit and social housing appear to be something that the Government begrudgingly provide. My local newspaper, the South Wales Argus, recently reported the story of Kevin Reeve, who has occupied the family home for 50 years and cared for his mother and father, who have both now sadly passed away. He is now underoccupying, losing between £35 and £45 a month and has been forced into trying to move.

The local housing association, Bron Afon, has catalogued the effects of this tax on the local community. It discovered that one person affected is a former solider suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder and depression. He lives with his daughter, who is hoping to go to university. They already underoccupy by one room. They are already cutting down on heating their home and eating. His daughter is now questioning whether she should go to university. He is resigned to trying to move. His current home is the one in which he raised his children, the home that he shared with his wife, who, sadly, has now died. He is proud of that home, and we should be proud of him, a veteran who has served our country. Is this the way we repay our servicemen?

The bedroom tax is another example of the chaos, confusion and poor implementation of chronically ill conceived policies by the Department for Work and Pensions. It is clear that this policy is unjustly penalising vulnerable people for something beyond their control. It is causing immense hardship and devastating people’s lives. It shows complete callousness towards those who rely on housing benefit. Many good people who rely on housing benefit feel that they live not in prosperity Britain but in poverty Britain, thanks to this Conservative and Liberal Democrat Government. Those responsible for this policy should hang their heads in shame.

[Lord Taylor of Goss Moor (LD)]

My Lords, I should first declare my interest as chair of the National Housing Federation, which represents the housing associations across England.

I will speak briefly, on a personal basis, to say that I cannot support the Government’s policy on this. I believe it was misjudged in the first place and we are rapidly seeing the proof in the pudding. I cannot support something that deprives people of money that, by any standards, they need—the Government do not give people more in benefit than they need to live on—when they have no option to move somewhere else because of the shortage of smaller homes. That is quite apart from the fact that to describe these rooms as surplus to need is in many cases simply wrong, and even if they are surplus today, they are often not surplus tomorrow. Therefore, for example, a family with young children will have to have those children live in a room together, but after a year they might need to live apart.

This simply does not make sense. I very much regret that the amendments in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Best, on this, were not passed, because that would have secured the Government some of what they wished but given a much fairer deal to individuals; for example by not removing the money if a reasonable alternative has not been offered to them.

However, the most fundamental reason—the proof of the pudding—is that this is not a saving to government any more than it frees up rooms. That is because of the huge cost to housing associations of having to work with individuals to help them, and the cost of the work and the money that the Government have had to put in to support individuals. It has removed capacity from the social housing sector to provide more homes. All of the money lost—and, frankly, the arrears that are being built up—will never be gained back from people who have no ability to pay it. That simply undermines the capacity to solve the very housing problem which the policy was theoretically meant to address but has failed to do.

Although my instincts are those of a team player, and my track record over a substantial period of time shows that to be the case, this is not something on which I can support my noble friends.